# of players: 2-5 (6 with the separately sold 6-player board/expansion)

Cost: $50

To learn:Small World is a tad bit more complex than Risk but barely. It’s easy to learn, especially by modern board game standards.

To play: You’ll constantly look up special powers and race abilities on the included reference sheets. Otherwise, players don’t have a lot to worry about, and turns go by very quickly.

Noteworthy: You might’ve heard of a Small World 2 video game out there (iOS, Android, Steam). Don’t be fooled: It’s not a sequel. It’s just the second digital release, updated to reflect all the features the board game now offers. (The original was two players only.)

Yes, we know Risk was a physical product long before it turned electronic. So saying that Small World the board game reminds us of Risk the video game is sort of cheating for the purposes of this article. But we’ve been playing Risk on computers and consoles for literally decades now, so it’s hard not to consider it a video game. And hey, this is our story, our rules.

We went there because Risk is the perfect comparison to make. In it, armies conquer regions on a map, encroaching on enemy territory until someone has taken over the world. In Small World, fantasy-novel creatures like trolls, dwarves, giants, and ghouls butt their ugly heads. But rather than seeking global domination, all they want is a little bit more elbow room in a relatively tiny and crowded plot of land — even if it takes genocide to get it. It’s a small world after all (sorry).

Above: A sample three-player setup, with gray, neutral tribes already populating the map. On the left, you can see the six available power/race combinations that players can purchase.

Image Credit: Days of Wonder

Similar to Risk, Small World gives players piles of troops (represented by small cardboard tiles) to push into new sectors, but the math here is simpler. Very generally speaking, one of your units takes out one of the enemy’s, so as long as you have a few more warriors in your stack, you should be able to advance.

This isn’t just “Fantasy Risk,” though. What makes Small World so beloved by board gamers is its myriad of different styles of play.

During setup, you shuffle the base game’s 20 powers together with the 14 races to create different combinations of armies. Only six of these combos, however, are for sale at any point. Once a player recruits one of these teams, he removes it from the market, becoming its sole owner. No one else will have access to that particular group until it goes completely extinct, at which point it goes back into the pile for possible future recruiting.

The specific mixes make all the difference. For example, the “Dragon Master” power allows its owner to use — what else? — a dragon to conquer new regions with only one unit. But the different races come with their own defining characteristics, too. So if Dragon Master is paired with Skeletons, then you get “Dragon Master Skeletons,” and the player who runs them receives the Dragon Master power plus the Skeletons’ special ability to multiply as they take over more real estate. If Dragon Master were attached to Wizards instead, then you’d have “Dragon Master Wizards” — the giant lizard plus the Wizards’ bonus of getting extra victory points for occupying magic regions.

Above: Left-side power tiles fit with right-side race tiles to form unique combinations. The big numbers also determine how many units this combo comes with, 10 in this case.

Image Credit: Days of Wonder

After you purchase an army, you put it into play, attempting to take over territories for points. After your foes whittle down your forces to the point where you just can’t mount an effective offensive (or if you’ve stretched yourself out too thin across the map), you can send your current race into “decline,” letting them slowly die out. This usually removes all of its powers and abilities, but it allows you to recruit a new, active team to battle with.

A match wraps up after a fixed number of rounds, which means players are constantly in the game and engaged. Since a complete takeover of the land isn’t the goal (and probably isn’t even possible here), you’ll never see that sad endgame scenario in Risk where a clear leader has gained too much momentum to lose, and everyone else has to suffer their remaining turns knowing a comeback is impossible. Small World is generally exciting for everyone right up to the end.

Bottom line: In our board game group, Small World is in constant rotation despite all the options that we have available to us. Sessions never take that long — 45 minutes to a little over an hour — and everyone is always eager to see what new power/race combinations are up for grabs. Alchemist Ratmen, Commando Sorcerers, Seafaring Orcs, Wealthy Tritons, Underworld Amazons, Flying Halflings … the possibilities and replayability seem endless because you rarely see the same team twice (even more so if you add in any of the separately sold mini-expansions). Thematically, it’s family-friendly enough for older children to enjoy, yet it offers enough strategy to serve as a tournament game at conventions.

Even though this is is an older product, don’t miss out! Small World gets one of the highest recommendations that I can offer.

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]]>0Great tabletop games for video gamers: Small WorldWhy VCs should stop investing in ‘Internet’ startups and start investing in ‘tech’http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/17/vc-risk-technology/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/17/vc-risk-technology/#commentsTue, 17 Dec 2013 10:30:06 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=872993Guest:The Internet investment sphere has become overripe in the last few years. We need more technological investment, more risk.
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What do photo sharing, social networking, and mobile payments have in common?

They represent hot trends that VCs have piled onto in recent years without regard for how small these markets really are.

Put plainly, there’s only room for a few (successful) photo sharing apps in the world.

Yet we’ve watched it happen again and again. When Groupon took off, up sprang LivingSocial, then Bloomspot. Before you could blink, every VC firm in Silicon Valley had the “daily deals” space checked off on its portfolio. We all know how that turned out.

This herd mentality is siphoning capital from more promising start-ups and sandbagging the creativity for which Silicon Valley — and the startup scene more broadly — has long been known.

Venture capitalists have become so risk-averse, it seems they’ve forgotten that risk-taking is the whole point of their jobs.

I have actually heard investors claim that if someone is able to sell them on a company, then they should be able to sell it to anyone. The problem with this line of logic is that it focuses more on the pitch — that is, the sales and marketing hype — than it does on the actual substance of a startup, or more importantly, its product.

In fact, rather than rushing in headlong, VCs should approach hot areas with extra caution. And instead of seeking out copycat startups to add to their own portfolios, VCs should actively research the landscape and seek to build a unique, thoughtful, and nuanced perspective on the industry current and future. The best way to accomplish this is to spend time with academics, scientists, and research centers — the places where the real, down-and-dirty innovation is happening.

Investors should also have, or hire people who have, a strong background in technology and science. This way they will be able to intelligently recognize and track major breakthroughs as they move from abstract concepts to real-world applications.

I like to think of this approach as “proactive investing.” Proactive investing gives VCs a competitive advantage because, by employing a combination of research, connections, and proprietary knowledge, VCs have can pursue interesting areas and companies that others haven’t noticed yet.

In order to become more proactive, VCs should step back and examine the wider technology landscape. Doing so will make it clear that what I will broadly term the Internet investment sphere (encompassing everything from consumer apps to enterprise software as a service) has become overripe in the last few years. In fact, in Q3 of this year, Internet investment was up 17 percent compared to the same period last year — the highest growth levels since the dot-com bubble burst.

Of course, this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. One explanation for the herd mentality we’re witnessing lies in our natural distrust of things we don’t understand. Internet and computing is relatively easy to understand, even for outsiders and those without deep tech knowledge. Certainly it’s much easier to bring up mobile payments at a cocktail party than to delve into nanotechnology. It’s no wonder that the former garners more buzz, even if the latter wields more potential to transform our world.

But Internet tech is just one sector of a much larger technological field. On its own, the Internet can’t solve all of the problems, or satisfy all of the needs, of humanity. As one of my friends once put it, “Social media can warn you that an asteroid is barreling towards the earth, but it can’t do anything to stop it.”

Part of the larger technology field I’m referring to includes some emerging niches that are often challenging to conceptualize and explain, including nanomaterials, quantum computing, ultra-precise sensing, and so forth. While it’s tough to convey the value and potential of these areas in soundbites, they promise tremendous upside in terms of both financial return and world-changing innovation.

We must do a better job of educating ourselves and others about the cutting-edge technology that is springing up in the unexplored shadows. This is exactly what we are trying to accomplish at my company, QWave Capital, by stepping back from the hype cycle and doing our own research into some of the technologies that are likely to erupt in the coming years, with massive potential to disrupt old markets and create new ones.

As one example of a neglected industry with high potential, Mail.Ru founder Dmitry Grishin last year unveiled a new fund focused exclusively on the personal robotics industry. It’s a promising area that has seen surprisingly little investment despite the widespread belief in academic and research circles that robotics will soon change our world in fundamental ways.

So if you are looking to invest in the “next big thing,” do yourself a favor. Step out of the bubble. Make connections not just within the tech community, but also within the wider scientific and academic communities. You’ll gain deeper insight into where technology and society are headed and the kind of innovation that is needed to move us forward, not incrementally, but in leaps and bounds.

All important innovations take place beyond the borders of established disciplines and industries. Truly disruptive technology often heralds the creation of an entirely new industry, or bridges two previously disparate ones. If venture capitalists and other investors want to foster true innovation and move society forward while also making a profit, they will need to turn down the volume on the hype machine and start taking the right kind of risks.

Sergei Kouzmine is the managing partner of QWave Capital, a venture fund focused on investing in quantum technology and other SciTech innovation.

]]>1Why VCs should stop investing in ‘Internet’ startups and start investing in ‘tech’Insights from an app-developer veteran: Think simple, low-riskhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/11/18/insights-from-an-app-developer-veteran-think-simple-low-risk/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/18/insights-from-an-app-developer-veteran-think-simple-low-risk/#commentsTue, 19 Nov 2013 03:00:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=860896Guest:Here are my six tips on keeping your cool and maybe hitting it big with an app.
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Rob Jonson is a self-taught programmer who has been releasing apps under the Hobbyist name for 10 years.

The press loves an “app millionaire” — entrepreneurs that make big money as their products attract venture capital, or the assimilating hands and deep pockets of a technology giant like Apple or Google.

Most developers will never live in that world.

The majority will make their living as contractors or employees working on other people’s apps, but some make a living writing their own apps and releasing them in the various stores. I have been living off my own apps for a decade now. From the Treo 600, through the iPhone revolution and on to the growing popularity of Android.

At the risk of sounding like a hoary old man of the hills, I’ve seen a lot of changes and been astonished at the ways in which the market has developed. But some things have remained true throughout the 10 years I’ve been running Hobbyist Software, and I expect they’ll go on being true long after I’ve hung up my keyboard. So here are a handful of tips and observations for the solo developer.

Satisfy your own needs

My most popular apps are ones that I’ve developed for myself to satisfy my own needs with devices that excite me. If you want a capability on your device, chances are there are other people thinking the same thing. Having a problem you want to solve for yourself means that you are more committed to it and actually understand it. It’s also a lot more fun.

Take feedback and act on it

Without exception it has been feedback from highly engaged users which has allowed my apps to keep developing over the years, to improve and stay fresh. I respond to most customer emails myself and aim to do so quickly. This seems to have a lasting halo effect as customers recommend my apps to their friends. Many people are surprised and very pleased to get an email from the real developer rather than a support minion.

Keep it simple – but not too simple

You’ll typically get most feedback from the highly technical users who want lots of complicated features and options. These guys are great, they have some killer ideas, but they are not the majority of your users. In order to keep the broader base happy, you need to keep things simple. Palm OS used to talk about ‘the zen of Palm.’ They obsessed about letting users act in as few taps as possible. Apple has embraced this desire for simplicity — though, with Apple, making things beautiful can sometimes get in the way of achieving the goal.

Looks matter

When I started developing, apps were called applications, and we cared more about what they did than how they looked. Times have changed. For your app to be a success, it needs to look good. Spend that bit of extra time (and maybe money, if graphic skills aren’t your thing) to give it a bit of polish.

You can’t predict success

Apps are like pop songs. You write the app, you polish it and you release it. You don’t know whether it will be a hit or flop. That is true even after your first successful app. Most pop bands are one-hit-wonders, and most developers will struggle to follow initial success. I had low expectations for the app that would become my most successful project, and others that I was super-excited about disappeared without a trace. You do your best, release your app, then move on if you need to.

Small is good

I have been accused of lacking ambition, but I like my small, low-risk approach. I don’t have employees, I have never spent more than a few thousand pounds to develop, design, and launch an app. Many developers are working towards a big launch on borrowed money, hiring an expensive team of rock star developers and publicists, hoping and hanging on for that ever elusive venture capital or big tech buy-out. I look at most of those app ideas and wonder why they didn’t just build their app in the evenings, launch it, and see what happens. Most will disappear without a trace, but a good idea that fulfills a need will gradually find a market. And probably has as much chance of hitting it big as any other decent app, with a lot less risk.

Rob Jonson is a self-taught programmer who has been releasing apps under the Hobbyist name for 10 years. Rob makes his living selling apps (including the best selling VLC Remote and VLC Streamer) direct to customers via app stores. Rob made his first app, Butler (a no.1 best seller), on Palm OS for the Treo600 (arguably the first smart phone). Rob managed to make the transition to iOS with the best selling VLC Remote, released in 2008, the earliest days of the App Store. Along the way, he’s released apps for Palm OS, Web OS, Android, Windows Phone, iOS, Mac, and Windows. One of his early cult Palm OS apps even influenced the key ‘Just type’ feature of Web OS. You can find out more about his apps and Hobbyist Software.

]]>0Insights from an app-developer veteran: Think simple, low-riskContego gets $1.4M to save your business from fraud with softwarehttp://venturebeat.com/2013/10/31/contego-fraud/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/31/contego-fraud/#commentsFri, 01 Nov 2013 01:21:42 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=851210Contego wants to make sure that business or person you’re about to hire on isn’t a fake or a risky move. It created a “fraud protection” software product that earned it $1.4 million in its first round of funding today. Contego nicely calls its product “due diligence software” — the program that’s going to tell […]
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Contego wants to make sure that business or person you’re about to hire on isn’t a fake or a risky move.

It created a “fraud protection” software product that earned it $1.4 million in its first round of funding today.

Contego nicely calls its product “due diligence software” — the program that’s going to tell you if there’s any reason why you shouldn’t hire this person or use that company’s service. It’s about mitigating risk, making sure those people and businesses you’re getting involved with aren’t going to cause your business harm, financial loss, or data loss.

Contego is based in Oxfordshire and was founded in 2010. The company has taken on a total of $2.2 million to date. It first got its seed round in 2012. Investors include London Business Angel Investors, the Rainbow Seed Funding, the Angel CoFund, Cass Entrepreneurship Fund, and other investors.

]]>0Contego gets $1.4M to save your business from fraud with softwareHow at risk for attack is your company? BitSight’s gets $24M to tell youhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/06/05/bitsight-funding/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/05/bitsight-funding/#commentsThu, 06 Jun 2013 01:01:37 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=751873BitSight tells you how at-risk your company is through looking at a variety of data points you already have.
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BitSight believes the best way to tell if your company could get hacked is through the data you currently have.

The company received a $24 million first round of funding today, from data-excited venture capitalists including Menlo Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Globespan Capital, and Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

BitSight looks at a number of different data points within your company and then assesses how at-risk for cyber attacks you are. It will looks at your company’s existing security practices, the technology you use, as well as the behavior of your employees to assess this risk. From there it will will provide you its analysis, as well as suggestions on how to mitigate an attack.

Flybridge Capital Partners’ general partner David Aronoff — who also serves on BitSight’s board and invested in its seed round– explained in a statement that the firm wanted to invest more money after being impressed with how the company handled that seed round.

BitSight says it will use the funding to finish building out its product, which has not yet been launched, and evenutally get it into customers’ hands. In order to do that, another portion of the funding will go toward hiring sales and marketing employees. Its website is relatively sparse, but does say that it is hiring.

The company is headquartered in Massachussetts. The National Science Foundation invested in BitSight for its seed round.

First off, only 20 percent of venture funded companies are considered a success by their investors, and of those, not every company exits with the founding team intact.

Here’s a list of some of the unintended consequences of VC funding caused by the unnatural acts of mixing the needs of a VC with the realities of growing a company.

Increased Difficulty of An Exit – When a founder raises big money at a high valuation investors inject funding terms like board control, preferences and participation to ensure that the founders are 100 percent focused on delivering a BFE (Big Friggin Exit). Investors want a 10X return and aren’t going to agree to a puny $10 million exit. There are a large universe of potential buyers in the $10 million range. There are an order of magnitude fewer exits opportunities in the $50M+ range.

Lower Return for Founders – You raised $5 million from investors. They’re targeting a $50 Million return (10X) for themselves. So now you found one of the few companies that can buy you and pay $50 million. Your investors most likely have dictated deal terms that either guaranteed that they will get a large portion — if not all — of that money or they will veto the deal. Founders may have to sell for $60+ million, a Herculean feat, to earn as much as they would in a buy-out of a bootstrapped company sold for a more easily obtainable $5 – 10 million.

Less Flexibility – Your company has grown to $10 million in revenue and is creating $2 million in free cash flow. If you’re bootstrapped, you and your co-founder pivot to a lifestyle company and pocket a million dollars a year, not counting salary and bonus. If you’re venture funded and the company growth is stalled, you may get replaced. If you’re not ejected and your compensation committee (staffed by investors and not you) will insure your compensation is such that you need a big exit. You won’t be pulling down the big bucks until the VCs get theirs.

Pushed to a Half-Baked Exit – Venture funds typically have a 10 year life. VCs are focused on winding down the fund at the end of fund-life and exiting out of all investments. A three-year-old fund is going to push you to sell your company within 5 to 6 years of investing in you… whether the cake is fully baked or not.

Purgatory – File this under “Crazy But True.” Sometimes a venture firm will keep a company alive, even when pulling the plug is the obvious and humane outcome. They’ll pare down the staff, cut the burn, and allow the company to survive long enough for other portfolio gains to outweigh writing off the loss of your brain-dead company. I’ve been the CEO of a company kept on life support, fed only enough cash to live another day and not enough cash to grow and thrive. I pulled my own plug from that painful life without dignity.

Keep in mind that closing a round of funding is just a stage in your company’s growth. It adds capital that can accomplish great things and it adds risk. Celebrating a funding event is like celebrating a team’s selection to NCAA basketball tournament. It’s not time to pop the champagne. You’re not the tourney champs yet. It’s tougher than the regular season because you have a lot of games in front of you and one loss by even 1 point knocks you out of competition.

Glen Hellman is a former serial entrepreneur and hired gun turn around CEO for VCs. Today he’s an Angel Investor, Executive Leadership Coach, and blogger.

]]>05 ways taking venture capital could hurt youCylance gets $15M to put a little more prevention into your security planhttp://venturebeat.com/2013/02/13/cylance-funding/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/13/cylance-funding/#commentsThu, 14 Feb 2013 01:30:00 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=621955Security firm Cylance received $15 million in its first round of funding today. It hopes to use data and analysis to determine your likelihood of attack.
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You just got hacked. What happened? How could you have prevented this? The obvious questions only come after the deed has been done. Security firm Cylance wants to put an end to reactionary security, and focus on the prevention of attacks. The company got $15 million in its first round of funding today led by storied venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.

Cylance was started by former McAfee executive Stuart McClure in 2012. The company has since been in stealth mode, though it has previously talked about some of its products. It officially announced its board members today, including Stewart Baker, formerly of the National Security Administration, and former chief information security officer for the CIA Robert Bigman.

Presponse first looks at the “critical infrastructure” your company uses, such as connections to the smart grid and connected water systems. It then looks at other smart devices such as Internet-connected thermostats, healthcare devices, and more. It then looks at your business, what kind of information you might store, and how valuable that information is. In the end, it shows you how at-risk you are and exactly where an attack might try to attack.

“If you can secure the very fabric of our society and economy – critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) – you can secure anything,” said Mark Hatfield, Partner at Fairhaven Capital in a statement. “The security industry is ready for an overhaul and Cylance has the vision.”

When Facebook’s S-1 filing comes out (which could be as soon as tomorrow, if you believe the Wall Street Journal), we’ll see a lot of risks in it.

The S-1 is the first and most significant document that a company fills out, and the Securities and Exchange Commission publishes, prior to an initial public offering. If it’s typical, we’ll see many boilerplate risks, such as an earthquake wiping out Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, a global economic meltdown, and the world deciding en masse that the Internet is boring. Lawyers include so many of these risks — in Groupon’s S-1, the risks section went on for 20 pages — that it can be hard to isolate the meaningful ones.

Here’s a look at what I believe are the three biggest risks to Facebook’s business.

The rise of mobile and Android. Mobile phones will be the centerpiece of social networks. They’re already tremendously important and will become even more so. This is especially true in the developing world, where the phone may be the only device consumers use to get online.

In this space, Google has strong assets that Facebook does not. I fully expect that Google will attempt to shove Google+ down the data pipe of every Android user. Google+ will eventually come pre-installed on nearly every Android phone, much as Google Maps does today.

Google has already built some interesting features into its Google+ app. For example, although I’m not a big fan of Google+ in general, I do like the feature that automatically uploads pictures I take to Google+. From there, it’s easy to share them. The easier you can make it for people, the more they’ll use your service.

An often-overlooked asset that Google has is Google Voice. Social networks like Facebook miss a key piece of the social graph: the people you call and text. For my closest friends, I tend to text with them regularly. That is data that Facebook currently doesn’t have.

To the extent that Google can deeply integrate Google+ features into Android, it has a significant advantage.

Facebook itself is no slacker on mobile. More than 350 million people access Facebook on mobile devices, the company says. In developing countries, Facebook has worked with mobile carriers to launch its Facebook Zero initiative, which gives people a way to access a low-bandwidth version of Facebook for free. Facebook also has a strong enough brand that it can push on carriers to have its app pre-installed.

Although I wouldn’t recommend Google+ to advertisers on its own merits as a social network, I do recommend it based on its impact on Google search engine rankings. Marketers can move their pages from search oblivion to the front page of Google results by engaging with their customers and prospects on Google+.

When Google adds advertising to Google+, it can also make the ad buy integrated into AdWords purchasing. (Or even make it a bundled buy.)

Facebook still has so much traffic that advertisers will need to continue using Facebook, but it doesn’t have the social world to itself anymore.

Privacy-related regulations. Facebook’s greatest strength is the amount of data it has on hundreds of millions of users and their interactions. But it’s also a potential challenge when it comes to privacy regulations.

For the U.S. market, this isn’t a huge challenge, as privacy advocates have relatively little sway in government. But European regulators take a much tougher approach to privacy. (In some cases, such as Google’s StreetView Wi-Fi data collection, I think it’s absurd.) In December, Facebook agreed to make 35 privacy changes in Europe.

Even with privacy regulations in place, Facebook can still grow its ad business. The bigger concern is the degree to which compliance with a patchwork of global privacy rules takes away engineering resources and inhibits the implementation of new features that consumers may want.

Rocky Agrawal is an analyst focused on the intersection of local, social, and mobile. He is a principal analyst at reDesign mobile. Previously, he launched local and mobile products for Microsoft and AOL. He blogs at http://blog.agrawals.org and tweets at @rakeshlobster.

]]>0The 3 Facebook IPO risk factors that matter7 risks worth taking in 2011http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/30/7-risks-worth-taking-in-2011/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/30/7-risks-worth-taking-in-2011/#commentsThu, 30 Dec 2010 14:00:36 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=234907Guest:(Editor’s note: Steve Fredrick and Don Rainey are general partners at Grotech Ventures. They submitted this story to VentureBeat.) Although the economic downturn was historic, we were surprised to see how many savvy investors and startups simply shut down during this time period. While conserving cash was critical to survival for a lot of companies, […]
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(Editor’s note: Steve Fredrick and Don Rainey are general partners at Grotech Ventures. They submitted this story to VentureBeat.)

Although the economic downturn was historic, we were surprised to see how many savvy investors and startups simply shut down during this time period. While conserving cash was critical to survival for a lot of companies, whenever possible, that should have been done within the framework of doing more with less, rather than simply doing little or nothing at all.

It’s not part of our inherent DNA as entrepreneurs to eschew risk, and we must once again celebrate and reward the risk-takers among us as we head into 2011, because it’s these groups of individuals that will help pull us out of the morass of the past two years.

We’re already seeing signs that the startup community is getting back to its innovative roots, and we fully expect entrepreneurial endeavors to come back into style over the next year. Companies and consumers are beginning to spend again, the exit markets are rebounding, appetites for risk are resuming and natural selection has taken place – thinning out weaker organizations, as the stronger have survived.

Also, crises breed opportunities, and many seed-stage companies got off the ground in 2010 thanks to unemployed entrepreneurs that cobbled together initial plans and funding. In 2011, these young organizations will aim to take the next steps, which in many cases will include a Series A round of venture capital.

So what risks should investors and entrepreneurs be prepared to take in this climate? Here are our thoughts on seven risks that may well result in success:

Start spending again. Do it wisely and maximize every dollar, but don’t sit on your hands trying to conserve cash forever. Hire critical employees, invest in new channels, and reward innovation or risk being left behind. Just as real estate experts talk about kitchens and bathrooms being high-value, dollar-for-dollar renovation projects, there are similar examples in entrepreneurship, such as sales, marketing, research and development.

Hire new assets. Hiring is a great way to strategically invest in growth. The employment market is clearly a buyers’ market right now. There are a lot of talented people among the unemployed as well as an increasing number of semi-retired workers. These trends highlight creative ways to bring high-quality, experienced people on board for reasonable (in some cases even part-time) salaries.

Change your core business. If your current market is changing rapidly (and whose isn’t), now is the time to flesh out and fully consider Plan B. Don’t be afraid to make a wholesale shift in your business to catch the right wave. Many of the best ideas came from a discovery process that led an entrepreneur from Plan A to Plan B.

You may lose some good employees and customers along the way, but you need to think about whether your initial plan is still going to net you and your investors the big rewards you thought it would three years ago. If it won’t, then look for ways to maximize your IP and your expertise to forge a new path.

Investigate new revenue models. Is freemium working for you? Have you considered free? How about a subscription model? What will it take to make your business a success? Don’t be afraid to consider a radical change to the revenue model.

Sell the company. Many founders are reluctant to sell too early, but they can easily miss the window of opportunity. Rather than looking at selling as a necessary evil, and a viable option only when you can no longer make it on your own, consider what company or companies might make a great heavy-hitter once combined with your assets.

Forge impactful partnerships. Partnerships have long been a great way to extend one’s reach. In addition to traditional agreements that might broaden a company’s geographic reach or technical capabilities, investors and entrepreneurs should look for ways to merge portfolio companies to lower overhead, expand service offerings and accelerate product development and R&D.

Enter new geographic markets. The Internet and other modern technologies are great at breaking down barriers, and many economists are forecasting higher growth for China, India and Brazil than for traditional markets like the U.S. and Western Europe. It might not be as hard as you think to start selling into these burgeoning markets.

]]>17 risks worth taking in 2011IBM picks up risk analytics provider OpenPages to stay on the safe sidehttp://venturebeat.com/2010/09/15/imb-openpages-acquisition/
http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/15/imb-openpages-acquisition/#commentsWed, 15 Sep 2010 17:26:12 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=213621IBM announced today that it has acquired OpenPages, which provides software to help companies isolate and manage enterprise risk elements. The price of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed. OpenPages’ software highlights any inconsistencies in risk and performance goals — such as overly aggressive revenue goals for an emerging market like Latin America — and gives management […]
]]>IBM announced today that it has acquired OpenPages, which provides software to help companies isolate and manage enterprise risk elements. The price of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed.

OpenPages’ software highlights any inconsistencies in risk and performance goals — such as overly aggressive revenue goals for an emerging market like Latin America — and gives management a comprehensive view of the business opportunities and risks associated with the expansion.

OpenPages had previously partnered with IBM for the Operational Riskdata eXchange, a consortium of banks formed to collect loss-event data and meet operational risk guidelines outlined by standards set by an international banking committee.

The Waltham, Mass.-based company had previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Goldman Sachs, Matrix Partners and Sigma Partners among others. Allianz, Barclays, Carnival Corporation, Duke Energy and SunTrust are among OpenPages’ clients, according to the company’s website.

IBM has invested about $11 billion in analytics research and interpretation, which included hiring about 6,000 consultants and seven full-time analytics centers.